Managing Emotions in Personal Selling: Examining the Role of Emotion Regulation Strategy in Salespeople

Personal selling is a dynamic profession and a salesperson's ability to manage his/her emotions is crucial. This research examines the role that a salesperson's ability to regulate his/her emotions has on burnout, motivation, selling behaviors and perceived performance. It highlights an emotion regulation strategy which is especially adaptive for managing negative emotions, cognitive reappraisal. A conceptual framework is developed to illuminate the role of cognitive appraisal on salesperson emotional well-being, adaptive selling behavior, motivation and perceived performance. Findings indicate that cognitive reappraisal is positively related to adaptive selling behavior which is positively related to perceived performance. Further, cognitive reappraisal is negatively related to ruminative propensity and emotional exhaustion. Results are discussed in relationship to their implications for managers and researchers.